Chambers Edinburgh Journal No 435 May 1 1852

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435
Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852

Author: Various

Editor: Robert Chambers
William Chambers

Release Date: July 7, 2006 [EBook #18775]

Language: English

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONTENTS

FORCED BENEFITS.
MONSIEUR JEROME AND THE RUSSIAN PRINCESS.
MEMOIRS OF LORD JEFFREY.
THE MOONLIGHT RIDE.
THE GOLD-FEVER IN AUSTRALIA.
BURGOMASTER LAW IN PRUSSIA.
TRACES OF THE DANES AND NORWEGIANS IN ENGLAND.
CHILDREN OF PRISONS.
JUPITER, AN EVENING STAR.
GRATUITOUS SERVICES.

Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S

INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 435. New Series.
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1852.
Price 1½d.

FORCED BENEFITS.

Return to Table of Contents

The maxim, that men may safely be left to seek their own interest, and are sure to find it, appears to
require some slight qualification, for nothing can be more certain, than that men are often the better of
things which have been forced upon them. Those who advocate the idea in its rigour, forget that there are
such things as ignorance and prejudice in the world, and that most men only become or continue actively
industrious under the pressure of necessity. The vast advantages derived from railway communication
afford a ready instance of people being benefited against their will. At the bare proposal to run a line
through their lands, many proprietors were thrown into a frenzy of antagonism; and whole towns petitioned
that they might not be contaminated with the odious thing. In spite of remonstrances, and at a vast cost,
railways were made; and we should like to know where opponents are now to be found. Demented land-
proprietors are come to their senses; and even recalcitrant Oxford is glad of a line to itself.

Cases of this kind suggest the curious consideration, that many remarkable benefits now experienced were
never sought for or contemplated by the persons enjoying them, but came from another quarter, and were
at first only grudgingly submitted to. A singular example happens to call our attention. There is a distillery in

[pg 273]

the west of Scotland, where it has been found convenient to establish a dairy upon a large scale, for the
purpose of consuming the refuse of the grain. Seven hundred cows are kept there; and a profitable market
is found for their milk in the city of Glasgow. That the refuse of the cow-houses might be applied to a
profitable purpose, a large farm was added to the concern, though of such land as an amateur agriculturist
would never have selected for his experiments. Thus there was a complete system of economy at this
distillery: a dairy to convert the draff into milk, and a farm to insure that the soil from the cows might be
used upon the spot. But, as is so generally seen in this country, the liquid part of the refuse from the cow-
houses was neglected. It was allowed to run into a neighbouring canal; and the proprietors would have
been contented to see it so disposed of for ever, if that could have been permitted. It was found, however,
to be a nuisance, the very fishes being poisoned by it. The proprietors of the canal threatened an action for
the protection of their property, and the conductors of the dairy were forced to bethink them of some plan
by which they should be enabled to dispose of the noxious matter without injury to their neighbours. They
could at first hit upon no other than that of carting away the liquid to the fields, and there spreading it out as
manure. No doubt, they expected some benefit from this procedure; and, had they expected much, they
might never have given the canal company any trouble. But the fact is, they expected so little benefit, that
they would never have willingly taken the trouble of employing their carts for any such purpose. To their
surprise, the benefit was such as to make their lean land superior in productiveness to any in the country.
They were speedily encouraged to make arrangements at some expense for allowing the manure in a
diluted form to flow by a regular system of irrigation over their fields. The original production has thus been
increased fourfold. The company, finding no other manure necessary, now dispose of the solid kind
arising from the dairy, among the neighbouring farmers who still follow the old arrangements in the
management of their cows. The sum of L.600 is thus yearly gained by the company, being not much less
than the rent of the farm. If to this we add the value of the extra produce arising from the land, we shall
have some idea of the advantage derived by this company from having been put under a little compulsion.

An instance, perhaps even more striking, was supplied a few years ago by certain chemical works which
vented fumes noxious to a whole neighbourhood. Being prosecuted for the nuisance, the proprietors were
forced to make flues of great length, through which the fumes might be conducted to a considerable
distance. The consequence was surprising. A new kind of deposit was formed in the interior of the flues,
and from this a large profit was derived. The sweeping of a chimney would sometimes produce several
thousand pounds. At the same time, nothing can be more certain than that this material, but for the threat of
prosecution, would have been allowed to continue poisoning the neighbourhood, and, consequently, not
yielding one penny to the proprietors of the works.[1]

It has pleased Providence to order that from all the forms of organic life there shall arise a refuse which is
offensive to our senses, and injurious to health, but calculated, under certain circumstances, to prove highly
beneficial to us. The offensiveness and noxiousness look very much like a direct command from the Author
of Nature, to do that which shall turn the refuse to a good account—namely, to bury it in the earth. Yet,
from sloth and negligence, it is often allowed to cumber the surface, and there do its evil work instead. An
important principle is thus instanced—the essential identity of Nuisance and Waste. Nearly all the physical
annoyances we are subjected to, and nearly all the influences that are operating actively for our hurt, are
simply the exponents of some chemical solecism, which we are, through ignorance or indifference,
committing or permitting. There is here a double evil—a positive and a negative. When the Londoner
groans at the smokiness of his streets, and the particles of soot he finds spread over his shirt, his toilet-
table, and every nice article of furniture he possesses, he has the additional vexation of knowing, that the
smoke and soot should have been serving a useful purpose as fuel. When he passes by a railway over the
tops of the houses in some mean suburb, and looks down with horror and disgust on the pools and heaps
of filth which are allowed to encumber the yards, courts, and narrow streets of these localities, to the
destruction of the health of the inhabitants, he has a second consideration before him, that all these matters
ought to be in the care of some easy-acting system, by which, removed to the fields, they should be helping
to create the means of life, instead of death. We never can look upon a great factory chimney pouring forth
its thick column of smoke, without a twin grief—for the disgust it creates, and the good that is lost by it.
Properly, that volatile fuel should be doing duty in the furnace, and effecting a saving to the manufacturer,
instead of rendering him and his concerns a nuisance to all within five miles.

Troublesome as these nuisances are, there is such an inaptitude to new plans, that they might go on for
ever, if an interference should not come in from some external quarter. It matters little whence the
interference comes, so that the end be effected. We cannot, however, view the proceedings of a Board of
Health in ordering cleanly arrangements, or those of a municipal council putting down factory smoke,
without great interest, for we think we there see part, and an important one too, of the great battle of
Civilisation against Barbarism. And this interest is deepened when we observe the benefits which
Barbarism usually derives from its own defeats. The factory-owner, for instance, will find that, in applying
an apparatus by which smoke may be prevented, he will not merely be sparing his neighbours a great
annoyance, but economising fuel to an extent which must more than repay the outlay. By repressing
nuisance, he will be in the same measure repressing waste.[2] Were there, in like manner, a general
measure for enforcing the removal of refuse from the neighbourhood of human habitations, the rate-payers

[pg 274]

would in due time see blessed effects from the compulsion to which they had been subjected. Their groans
would be succeeded by gladness, and they would thank the legislators who had slighted their
remonstrances. When the cholera approached in 1849, our British Board of Health ordered a general
cleaning out of stables, and a daily persistence in the practice. It was complained of as a great hardship;
but the Board ascertained that owners of valuable race-horses cause their stables to be thoroughly cleaned
daily, as a practice necessary for the health of the animals; the Board, therefore, very properly insisted on
forcing this benefit upon the proprietors of horses generally. Can we doubt that a similar policy might be
followed with the like good consequences at all times, and with regard to the habitations of men as well as
horses?

It would thus appear, that men may really be allowed a too undisturbed repose in their views and maxims,
and, if always left to seek their own interests, would often fail to find the way. If, indeed, it were true that
men are sure to find out their own interest, no country should be behind another in any of the processes or
arts necessary for the sustenance and comfort of the people; whereas we know the contrary to be the
case. If it were true, there should be no class in our own country willing to sit down with the dubious
benefits of monopoly, instead of pushing on for the certain results of enlightened competition. It could only
be true at the expense of the old proverb, that necessity is the mother of invention; for do we not every day
see men submitting idly and languidly to evils which can just be borne? whereas, if these were a little
greater, and therefore insupportable, they would at once be remedied. An impulse ab extra seems in a
vast number of instances to be necessary, to promote the good of both nations and individuals. Now,
whether this shall come in the ordinary course of things, and be recognised as necessity, or from an
enlightened power having a certain end, generally beneficial, in view, does not appear to be of much
consequence, provided only we can be tolerably well assured against the abuses to which all power is
liable. It may be well worthy of consideration, whether, in this country, we have not carried the principle of
Laissez faire, or leave us alone, a little too far in certain matters, where some gentle coercion would have
been more likely to benefit all concerned.

FOOTNOTES:

The idea of this article, and the above facts, are derived from a valuable memoir just
published by the Board of Health, with reference to the practical application of sewage
water and town manures to agricultural production.

We understand that this has been the case with factory-owners at Manchester who have
applied the smoke-preventing apparatus. The saving from such an apparatus in the office
where this sheet is printed, appears to be about 5 per cent.; an ample equivalent for the
outlay.

MONSIEUR JEROME AND THE RUSSIAN PRINCESS.

Return to Table of Contents

On arriving at Blois, I went to the Hôtel de la Tête Noire—a massive, respectable-looking building,
situated on the quay nearly opposite a bridge that crosses the river to the suburb of St Etienne. The
comfort of the rooms, and the excellence of the dinners that succeeded one another day by day, induced
me to stay longer than I had intended, and rendered me spectator and part-actor in an adventure not
uncommon in French-land. My apartment was numbered 48—by the way, who ever saw No. 1 in a hotel,
or upon a watch?—and next door—that is, at No. 49—dwelt a very dignified-looking gentleman, always
addressed as M. Jerome. I often take occasion to say, that I pique myself on being something of a
physiognomist; and as I have been several times right in my judgment of character and position from
inspection of the countenance, the occasions in which I have been mistaken may be set down as
exceptions. M. Jerome at once interested me; and as I was idly in search of health, and had taken care to
have nothing whatever to do but to kill time, the observation of this gentleman's appearance and manners
naturally formed a chief part of my occupation.

I began by ascertaining exactly the colour of his eyes and hair—nearly black; the shape of his nose—
straight, and rather too long; and would have been glad to examine the form of his mouth, but a huge
moustache hanging over his lips in the French military style—see the portrait of General Cavaignac—
prevented me from ascertaining the precise contour of what one of my old philosophers calls the Port
Esquiline of Derision. M. Jerome was, upon the whole, a handsome man, with a romantically bilious
complexion; and the expression of his large dark eyes was really profound and striking. His costume was
always fashionable, without being showy; and there was nothing to object to but a diamond ring,
somewhat too ostentatiously displayed on the little finger, which, in all his manual operations, at dinner or
elsewhere, always cocked up with an impertinent 'look-at-me air,' that I did not like. When, indeed, this
dandy walked slowly out of the dining-room to the door-step, and lighted his cigar, the said little finger
became positively obnoxious; and I used to think whether it were possible that that human being had been

[1]

[2]

[pg 275]

created purposely as a scaffolding whereon to exhibit a flashing little stone, set in twenty shillings worth of
gold.

M. Jerome, though not, strictly speaking, a silent man, was sufficiently reserved at table. The early courses
were by him always allowed to pass without any further remark than what politeness requires—as: 'Shall I
send you some more of this blanquette?' or, 'With pleasure, sir;' and so forth. When dessert-time
approached, however, he generally began to unbend, to take part in the general conversation, and throw in
here and there a piquant anecdote. He did this with so much grace, that had it not been for the diamond
ring, I should have been disposed to consider him as a man of large experience in the best society. The
other people who generally attended at table—travellers, commercial and otherwise, with one or two
smart folks from the town, on the look-out for Parisian gossip, to retail to the less adventurous members of
their circle—were all delighted with M. Jerome: it was M. Jerome here, and M. Jerome there; and if M.
Jerome happened to dine out, every one seemed to feel uneasy, and look upon him as guilty of a great
dereliction of duty. They could almost as well have done without their demi-tasse.

Although I am an inquisitive, I am not a very impertinent man. I like to pry into other people's affairs only in
so far as I can do so without hurting their feelings, or putting my own self-love in danger of a check. If,
therefore, I gave the reins to my curiosity, and devoted myself to studying the more apparent movements
of this M. Jerome, I shrank from putting any direct questions to the garçon, who might probably at once
have given me a very prosaic account of him. On one occasion, I threw in casually a remark, to the effect
that the gentleman at No. 49 seemed a great favourite with the fair sex; but the only reply was a smile, and
an acknowledgment that, in general, people of fascinating exterior—here the garçon glanced at the mirror
he was dusting—were great favourites with the fairer portion of the creation. 'We Frenchmen,' it was
added, 'know the way to the female heart better than most men.' The waiter had paused with his duster in
his hand. I felt that he was going to give me his Art of Love; and opportunely remembering that I had a
letter to put into the post, I escaped the infliction for the time.

I had, indeed, observed that if the public generally admitted the valuable qualities of M. Jerome as a
companion, his reputation was based principally on the approval of the ladies. All these excellent judges
agreed that he was a nice, quiet, agreeable person; and 'so handsome!' At least the seven members of an
English family, who had come to visit Chambord, and lingered at the hotel a week—five of them were
daughters—all expressed this opinion of M. Jerome; and even a supercilious French lady, with a particle
attached to her name, admitted that he was 'very well.'

One day, a new face appeared at table to interest me; and as the mysterious gentleman and his diamond
ring had puzzled me for a fortnight, during which I had made no progress towards ascertaining his real
position and character, I was not sorry to have my attention a little diverted by a mysterious lady. Madame
de Mourairef—a Russian name, thought I—was a very agreeable person to look at; much more so to me
than M. Jerome. She was not much past twenty years of age; small, slight, elegant in shape, if not
completely so in manners; and with one of those charming little faces which you can analyse into ugliness,
but which in their synthesis, to speak as moderns should, are admirable, adorable, fascinating. I should
have thought that such a minois could belong only to Paris—the city, by the way, of ugly women, whom
art makes charming. However, there it was above the shoulders, high of course—swan-necked women
are only found in England—above the shoulders of a Russian marchioness, princess, czarina, or what you
will, who called for her cigarettes after dinner, was attended by a little soubrette, named Penelope, and
looked for all the world as if she had just been whirled off the boards of the Opera Comique.

I at first believed that this was a mere mascarade; but when a letter in a formidable envelope, with the seal
of the Russian embassy, arrived, and was exhibited in the absence of the lady herself, to every one of the
lodgers, in proof of the aristocratic character of the customer of the Tête Noire, I began to doubt my own
perspicacity, and to imagine that I had now a far more interesting object of study than M. Jerome and his
diamond ring. Madame de Mourairef was an exceedingly affable person; and the English family aforesaid,
whom I have reason to believe were Cockney tradesfolks, pronounced her to be very high-bred—without
a fault, indeed, if it had not been for that horrid habit of smoking, which, as they judiciously observed,
however, was a peculiar characteristic of the Russians. I am afraid, they would have set her down as a
vulgar wretch, had they not been forewarned that she was aristocratic. The French lady seemed to look
upon the foreign one as an intruder, and scarcely deigned to turn her eyes in that direction. Probably this
was because she was so charming, and monopolised so much of the attention of us gentlemen.

'They no sooner looked than they loved,' says Rosalind. This was not, perhaps, quite the case with M.
Jerome and the Russian princess, who took care to let it be known that she was a widow; but in a very
few days what is called 'a secret sympathy' evidently sprang into existence. The former, of course, made
the first advances. His diplomatic and seductive arts were not, however, put to a great test, for in three
days the lady manifestly felt uneasy until he presented himself at dinner; and in a week, I met them walking
arm in arm on the bridge. It was easy to see that he was on his good behaviour; and from some fragments
of conversations I overheard between them when they met in the passage opposite my door, I learned that

he was 'doing the melancholy dodge,' as in the vernacular we would express it; and had many harrowing
revelations to make as to the manner in which his heart had been trifled with by unfeeling beauties.

'There is a tide in the affairs of an hôtel:' I am in a mood for quoting from my favourite authors; and
whereas we had at one time sat down nearly twenty to table, we suddenly found ourselves to be only three
—M. Jerome, the princess, and myself. A kind of intimacy was the natural result. We made ourselves
mutually agreeable; and I was not at all surprised, when one evening Madame de Mourairef invited us two
gentlemen to take tea with her in her little sitting-room. Both accepted joyfully; and though I am persuaded
that M. Jerome would have preferred a tête-à-tête, he accepted my companionship with tolerable grace.
We strolled together, indeed, on the quay for half an hour. It was raining slightly, and I had a cough; but I
have too good an opinion of human nature to imagine that my new acquaintance kept me out by his
fascinating conversation, in order to make me catch a desperate cold, that would send me wheezing to
bed.

The tea was served, as I suppose it is served in Russia, very weak, with a plentiful admixture of milk and
accompaniment of biscuits glacés. Madame de Mourairef did the honours in an inexpressibly graceful
manner; and I observed that there was a delightful intimacy between her and her maid Penelope, that quite
upset my ideas of northern serfdom. I think they even once exchanged a wink, but of this I am not sure.
There is nothing like experience to expand one's ideas, and I made up my mind to re-examine the whole of
my notions of Muscovite vassalage. M. Jerome seemed less struck by these circumstances than myself—
being probably too much absorbed in contemplation of our hostess—but even he could not avoid
exclaiming, 'that if that were the way in which serfs were treated, he should like to be a serf—of such a
mistress!'

'You Frenchmen are so gallant!' was the reply.

A little while afterwards, somebody proposed a game of whist. There was an objection to 'dead-man,' and
Penelope, with a semi-oriental salaam, offered to 'take a hand.' Madame de Mourairef was graciously
pleased to order her to do so. We shuffled, cut, and played; and when midnight came, and it was
necessary to retire, I felt almost afraid to examine into my own heart, lest I might find that the soubrette
appeared to me at least as high-bred as the mistress.

We spent some delightful evenings in this manner, and perhaps still more delightful days, for by degrees we
became inseparable, and all our walks and drives were made in common. The garçon often looked
maliciously at me, even offered once or twice to develop his Art of Love; but I did not choose to be
interrupted in my physiognomical studies, and gave him no opportunity.

A picnic was proposed, and agreed upon. We intended at first to go to Chambord; but there was danger
of a crowd; and a valley on the road to Vendôme was pitched upon. A calèche took us to the place, and
set us down in a delightful meadow, enamelled with flowers, as all meadows are in poetry. A few great
trees, forming almost a grove, shaded a slope near the banks of a sluggish stream that crept along between
an avenue of poplars. Here the cloth was laid at once for breakfast; and whilst M. Jerome and the princess
strolled away to talk of blighted hopes, Russia, serfdom, wedlock, and the conflagration of the Kremlin,
Penelope made the necessary preparation; and I, in my character of a fidgety old gentleman, first advised
and then assisted her. I am afraid the young damsel had designs upon my heart, for she put several
questions to me on the state of vassalage in England; and when I developed succinctly the principles and
advantages of our free constitution, and said some eloquent things that formed a French edition of 'Britons
never shall be slaves,' she became quite enthusiastic; her cheeks flushed, her eyes brightened; and with a
sort of Thervigne-de-Mericourt gesture, she cried: 'Vive la République!' This was scarcely the natural
product of what I had said; but so lively a little creature, in her dainty lace-cap and flying pink ribbons, neat
silk caraco, plaid-patterned gown, with pagoda sleeves, as she called them, and milk-white
manchettes—her bottines from the Rue Vivienne, and her face from Paradise—could reconcile many a
harder heart than mine to greater incongruities. Our arrangements being made, therefore, I sat down on a
camp-stool, whilst Penelope reclined on the grass; and I endeavoured to explain to her the great
advantages of a moderate constitutional government, with checks, balances, and so forth. Although she
yawned, I am sure it was not from ennui, but in order to shew me her pretty pearly teeth.

M. Jerome and the princess came streaming back over the meadow—even affected to scold me for having
remained behind. They were evidently on the best possible terms, and I took great satisfaction in
contemplating their happiness. Either my perspicacity was at fault, however, or both had some secret
cause of uneasiness that pressed upon their minds as the day advanced. Had they been only betrayed into
a declaration and a plighting of their troth in a hurry? Did they already repent? Did Madame de Mourairef
regret the barbarous splendour of her native land? Did M. Jerome begin to mourn over the delights of
bachelorship? These were the questions I put to myself without being able to invent any satisfactory
answer. The day passed, however, pleasantly enough; and the calèche came in due time to take us back to
Blois.

[pg 276]

Next morning, M. Jerome entered my room with a graceful bow, to announce his departure for Paris,
whither it was necessary for him to go to obtain the necessary papers for his marriage, and Madame de
Mourairef, he added, accompanied him. I uttered the necessary congratulations, and gave my address in
Paris, that he might call upon me as soon as he was settled in the hôtel he proposed to take.

'I take two persons with me,' he said, smiling; 'but one of them leaves her heart behind, I am afraid.'

This alluded to Penelope; but I was determined not to understand. I went to say adieu to Madame de
Mourairef, who seemed rather excited and anxious. Penelope almost succeeded in wringing forth a tear;
but I did not think it was decreed that at my age I should really make love to a Russian serf, however
charming. So off they went to the railway station, leaving me in a very dull, stupid, melancholy mood.

'What a fortunate man M. Jerome is!' said the garçon, as he came into my room a few minutes afterwards.

'Yes,' I replied; 'Madame de Mourairef seems in every way worthy of him.'

'I should think so,' quoth he. 'It is not every waiter, however fascinating, that falls in with a Russian
princess.'

'Waiter! M. Jerome!'

'Of course,' replied my informant. 'You seem surprised; but M. Jerome is really a waiter at the Café ——,
on the Boulevard des Italiens; came down for his health. We were comrades once, and I promised to
keep the secret, for he thought it extremely probable that he might meet a wealthy English lady here, who
might fall in love with him—your countrywomen are so eccentric. He has found a Russian princess, which
is better. I suppose we must now call him Monseigneur?'

Although, like the rest of my species, disposed to laugh at the misfortunes of my fellow-creatures, I confess
that I pitied Madame de Mourairef; for I felt persuaded that M. Jerome had passed himself off as a very
distinguished personage. However, there was no remedy, and I had no right to interfere in the matter. The
lady, indeed, had been in an unpardonable hurry to be won, and must take the consequences.

In the afternoon, there was a great bustle in the hôtel, and half-a-dozen voices were heard doing the work
of fifty. I went out into the passage, and caught the first fragments of an explanation that soon became
complete. M. Alphonse, courier to M. de Mourairef, had arrived, and was indignantly maintaining that
Sophie and Penelope, the two waiting-maids of the princess, had arrived at the Tête Noire, to take a suite
of rooms for their mistress; whilst the landlord and his coadjutors, slow to comprehend, averred that the
great lady had herself been there, and departed. The truth at length came out—that these two smart
Parisian lasses, having a fortnight before them, had determined to give up their places, and play the
mascarade which I have described. When M. and Madame de Mourairef, two respectable, middle-aged
people, arrived, they were dismally made acquainted with the sacrilege that had been committed; but as no
debts had been contracted in their name, and their letters came in a parcel by the post from Orleans, they
laughed heartily at the joke, and enjoyed the idea that Sophie had been taken in.

The following winter, I went into a café newly established in the Rue Poissonière, and was agreeably
surprised to see Sophie, the pseudo-princess, sitting behind the counter in magnificent toilette, receiving the
bows and the money of the customers as they passed before her, whilst M. Jerome—exactly in
appearance as before, except that prosperity had begun to round him—was leaning against a pillar in
rather a melodramatic attitude, a white napkin gracefully depending from his hand. They started on seeing
me, and were a little confused, but soon laughed over their adventure; called Penelope to take her turn at
the counter—the little serf whispered to me as she passed, that I was 'a traitor, a barbarian,' and insisted
on treating me to my coffee and my petit verre, free, gratis, for nothing.

MEMOIRS OF LORD JEFFREY.

Return to Table of Contents

In the crisis of the French Revolution, British society was paralysed with conservative alarms, and all
tendency to liberal opinions, or even to an advocacy of the most simple and needful reforms, was met with
a ruthless intolerance. In Scotland, there was not a public meeting for five-and-twenty years. In that night
of unreflecting Toryism, a small band of men, chiefly connected with the law in Edinburgh, stood out in a
profession of Whiggism, to the forfeiture of all chance of government patronage, and even of much of the
confidence and esteem of society. Three or four young barristers were particularly prominent, all men of
uncommon talents. The chief was Francis Jeffrey, who died in 1850, in the seventy-seventh year of his age,
after having passed through a most brilliant career as a practising lawyer and judge, and one still more
brilliant, as the conductor, for twenty-seven years, of the celebrated Edinburgh Review. Another was

[pg 277]

Henry Cockburn, who has now become the biographer of his great associate. It was verily a remarkable
knot of men in many respects, but we think in none more than a heroic probity towards their principles,
which were, after all, of no extravagant character, as was testified by their being permitted to triumph
harmlessly in 1831-2. These men anticipated by forty years changes which were ultimately patronised by
the great majority of the nation. They all throve professionally, but purely by the force of their talents and
high character. As there was not any precisely equivalent group of men at any other bar in the United
Kingdom, we think Scotland is entitled to take some credit to herself for her Jeffreys, her Cranstons, her
Murrays, and her Cockburns: at least, she will not soon forget their names.

Lord Jeffrey—his judicial designation in advanced life—was of respectable, but not exalted parentage.
After a careful education at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Oxford, he entered at the bar in 1793, when not yet
much more than twenty years of age. His father, being himself a Tory, desired the young lawyer to be so
too, seeing that it would be favourable to his prospects; but he could not yield in this point to paternal
counsel. The consequence was, that this able man practised for ten years without gaining more than L. 100
per annum. All this time, he cultivated his mind diligently, and was silently training himself for that literary
career which he subsequently entered upon. His talents were at that time known only to a few intimates:
there were peculiarities about him, which prevented him from being generally appreciated up to his deserts.
His figure, to begin with, was almost ludicrously small. Then, in his anxiety to get rid of the Scottish accent,
he had contracted an elocution intended to be English, but which struck every one as most affected and
offensive. His manners were marked by levity, and his conversation to many seemed flippant. His literary
musings also acted unfavourably on the solicitors, the leading patrons of young counsellors. Reduced by
dearth of business almost to despair, he had at one time serious thoughts of flinging himself upon the
London press for a subsistence. The first smile of fortune beamed upon him in 1802, when the Edinburgh
Review was started—a work of which he quickly assumed the management. That it brought him income
and literary renown, we gather from Lord Cockburn's pages; but we do not readily find it explained how.
While more declaredly a literary man than ever, he now advanced rapidly at the bar, and quickly became a
man of wealth and professional dignity. We suspect that, after all that is said of the effect of literary pursuits
on business prospects, the one success was a consequence in great measure of the other.

The value of this work rests, in our opinion, on the illustration which it presents of the possibility of a man
of sound though unpopular opinions passing through life, not merely without suffering greatly from the
wrath of society, but in the enjoyment of some of its highest honours. After reading this book, one could
almost suppose it to be a delusion that the world judges hardly of any man's speculative opinions, while his
life remains pure, and his heart manifestly is alive to all the social charities. The heroic consistency of Jeffrey
is the more remarkable, when it now appears that he was a gentle and rather timid man, keenly alive to the
sympathies of friends and neighbours—indeed, of womanish character altogether. As is well known, his
time arrived at last, when, on the coming of the Whigs into power in 1830, he was raised to the dignified
situation of Lord Advocate for Scotland, and was called upon to take the lead, officially, in making those
political changes which he had all along advocated. It is curious, however, and somewhat startling, to learn
how little gratification he professed to feel in what appeared so great a triumph. While his rivals looked
with envy on his exaltation, and mobs deemed it little enough that he should be entirely at their beck in
requital for the support they gave him, Mr Jeffrey was sighing for the quiet of private life, groaning at his
banishment from a happy country-home, and not a little disturbed by the troubled aspect of public affairs.
Mr Macaulay has somewhere remarked on the general mistake as to the 'sweets of office.' We are
assured by Lord Cockburn, that Jeffrey would have avoided the advocateship if he could. He accepted it
only from a feeling of duty to his party. He writes to a female relation of the 'good reason I have for being
sincerely sick and sorry at an elevation for which so many people are envying, and thinking me the luckiest
and most elevated of mortals for having attained.' And this subject is still further illustrated by an account
he gives of the conduct of honest Lord Althorpe during the short interval in May 1832, when the Whigs
were out. 'Lord Althorpe,' he says, 'has gone through all this with his characteristic cheerfulness and
courage. The day after the resignation, he spent in a great sale-garden, choosing and buying flowers, and
came home with five great packages in his carriage, devoting the evening to studying where they should be
planted in his garden at Althorpe, and writing directions and drawing plans for their arrangement. And
when they came to summon him to a council on the Duke's giving in, he was found in a closet with a
groom, busy oiling the locks of his fowlingpieces, and lamenting the decay into which they had fallen during
his ministry.'

In some respects, the book will create surprise, particularly as to the private life and character of the great
Aristarch. While the Edinburgh Review was in progress under the care of Mr Jeffrey, it was a most
unrelenting tribunal for literary culprits, as well as a determined assertor of its own political maxims. The
common idea regarding its chief conductor represented him as a man of extraordinary sharpness,
alternating between epigrammatic flippancy and democratic rigour. Gentle and refined feeling would
certainly never have been attributed to him. It will now be found that he was at all times of his life a man of
genial spirit towards the entire circle of his fellow-creatures—that his leading tastes were for poetry and the
beautiful in external nature, particularly fine scenery—that he revelled in the home affections, and was
continually saying the softest and kindest things to all about him—a lamb, in short, while thought a lion. The

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local circle in which he lived was somewhat limited and exclusive, partly, perhaps, in consequence of
having been early shut in upon itself by its dissent from the mass of society on most public questions; but in
this circle Jeffrey was adored by men, women, and children alike, on account of his extreme kindliness of
disposition. He was almost, to a ridiculous degree, dependent on the love of his friends; and the terms in
which he addresses some of them, particularly ladies, sound odd in this commonsense world. Thus, the
wife of one of his friends is, 'My sweet, gentle, and long-suffering Sophia.' He pours out his very heart to
his correspondents, and with an effect which would reconcile to him the most irascible author he ever
scarified. Thus, to his daughter, who had just left him with her husband:—'I happened to go up stairs, and
passing into our room, saw the door open of that little one where you used to sleep, and the very bed
waiting there for you, so silent and desolate, that all the love, and the miss of you, which fell so sadly on
my heart the first night of your desertion, came back upon it so heavily and darkly, that I was obliged to
shut myself in, and cry over the recollection, as if all the interval had been annihilated, and that loss and
sorrow were still fresh and unsubdued before me; and though the fit went off before long, I feel still that I
must vent my heart by telling you of it, and therefore sit down now to write all this to you, and get rid of my
feelings, that would otherwise be more likely to haunt my vigils of the night.' Thus, on the death of a sister
in his early days:—'A very heavy blow upon us all, and much more so on me than I had believed possible.
The habit of seeing her almost every day, and of living together intimately since our infancy, had wound so
many threads of affection round my heart, that when they were burst at once, the shock was almost
overwhelming. Then, the unequalled gentleness of her disposition, the unaffected worth of her affections,
and miraculous simplicity of character and manners, which made her always appear as pure and innocent
as an infant, took so firm, though gentle a hold on the heart of every one who approached her, that even
those who have been comparatively strangers to her worth, have been greatly affected by her loss....
During the whole of her illness, she looked beautiful; and when I gazed upon her the moment after she had
breathed her last, as she lay still, still, and calm, with her bright eyes half closed, and her red lips half open,
I thought I had never seen a countenance so lovely. A statuary might have taken her for a model. Poor,
dear love! I kissed her cold lips, and pressed her cold, wan, lifeless hand, and would willingly at that
moment have put off my own life too, and followed her. When I came here, the sun was rising, and the
birds were singing gaily, as I sobbed along the empty streets.'

The sensibility of Jeffrey to all fine expression that comes to us through the medium of literature was
intense, most so in his latter days, when his whole character seems to have undergone a mellowing
process. While pining under his greatness as Lord Advocate, and an authority in parliament (1833), he
says: 'If it were not for my love of beautiful nature and poetry, my heart would have died within me long
ago. I never felt before what immeasurable benefactors these same poets are to their kind, and how large a
measure, both of actual happiness and prevention of misery, they have imparted to the race. I would
willingly give up half my fortune, and some little fragments of health and bodily enjoyment that yet remain to
me, rather than that Shakspeare should not have lived before me.' Who that had only read his lively, acute
articles in the formal Review, could have believed him to be so deeply sympathetic with an unfortunate
poet, as he shews in the following fine passage in one of his letters (1837)? 'In the last week, I have read
all Burns's Life and Works—not without many tears, for the life especially. What touches me most, is the
pitiable poverty in which that gifted being (and his noble-minded father) passed his early days—the painful
frugality to which their innocence was doomed, and the thought how small a share of the useless luxuries in
which we (such comparatively poor creatures) indulge, would have sufficed to shed joy and cheerfulness in
their dwellings, and perhaps to have saved that glorious spirit from the trials and temptations under which
he fell so prematurely. Oh! my dear Empson, there must be something terribly wrong in the present
arrangements of the universe, when those things can happen, and be thought natural. I could lie down in the
dirt, and cry and grovel there, I think, for a century, to save such a soul as Burns from the suffering, and
the contamination, and the degradation, which these same arrangements imposed upon him; and I fancy
that, if I could but have known him, in my present state of wealth and influence, I might have saved, and
reclaimed, and preserved him, even to the present day. He would not have been so old as my brother-
judge, Lord Glenlee, or Lord Lynedoch, or a dozen others that one meets daily in society. And what a
creature, not only in genius, but in nobleness of character, potentially at least, if right models had been put
gently before him!'

The narrative of Lord Cockburn occupies only one volume, the other being filled with a selection from
Lord Jeffrey's letters. It is a brief chronicle of the subject; many will feel it to be unsatisfactorily slight. The
author seems to have been afraid of becoming tedious. It is, however, a manly and faithful narration, with
the rare merit of going little, if at all, beyond bounds in its appreciation of the hero or his associates, or the
importance of the circumstances in which he moved. The sketches of some of Jeffrey's contemporaries, as
John Clerk, Sir Harry Moncreiff, and Henry Erskine, are vigorous pieces of painting, which will suggest to
many a desire that the author should favour the public with a wider view of the men and things of Scotland
in the age just past. With a natural partiality as a friend and as a biographer, he seems to us to set too high
an estimate on Jeffrey when he ranks him as one of a quartett, including Dugald Stewart, Sir Walter Scott,
and Dr Chalmers, 'each of whom in literature, philosophy, or policy, caused great changes,' and 'left upon
his age the impression of the mind that produced them.' Few of his countrymen would claim this rank for

either Jeffrey or Stewart. Jeffrey, no doubt, raised a department of our literature from a low to a high level;
he was a Great Voice in his day. But he produced nothing which can permanently affect us; he gave no
great turn to the sentiments or opinions of mankind. His only original effort of any mark, is his exposition of
the association theory of beauty, which rests on a simple mistake of what is pleasing for what is beautiful,
and is already nothing. We suspect that no man with his degree of timidity will ever be very great, either as
a philosopher or as a man of deeds. He was a brilliant writer—the most brilliant, and, with one exception,
the most versatile in his age; but to this we would limit his panegyric, apart from the glory of his long and
consistent career as a politician, which we think can scarcely be overestimated.

So many of the most remarkable passages of the work have been already hackneyed through the medium
of the newspapers, that we feel somewhat at a loss to present any which may have a chance of being new
to our readers. So early as his twentieth year, we find Mr Jeffrey thus sensibly expressing himself on an
important subject:—

'There is nothing in the world I detest so much as companions and acquaintances, as they are called.
Where intimacy has gone so far as to banish reserve, to disclose character, and to communicate the reality
of serious opinions, the connection may be the source of much pleasure—it may ripen into friendship, or
subside into esteem. But to know half a hundred fellows just so far as to speak, and walk, and lounge with
them; to be acquainted with a multitude of people, for all of whom together you do not care one farthing; in
whose company you speak without any meaning, and laugh without any enjoyment; whom you leave
without any regret, and rejoin without any satisfaction; from whom you learn nothing, and in whom you
love nothing—to have such a set for your society, is worse than to live in absolute solitude; and is a
thousand times more pernicious to the faculties of social enjoyment, by circulating in its channels a stream
so insipid.'

At the peace of Amiens, Jeffrey wrote thus to his friend Morehead, 7th October 1801: 'It is the only public
event in my recollection that has given me any lively sensation of pleasure, and I have rejoiced at it as
heartily as it is possible for a private man, and one whose own condition is not immediately affected by it,
to do. How many parents and children, and sisters and brothers, would that news make happy? How
many pairs of bright eyes would weep over that gazette, and wet its brown pages with tears of gratitude
and rapture? How many weary wretches will it deliver from camps and hospitals, and restore once more
to the comforts of a peaceful and industrious life? What are victories to rejoice at, compared with an event
like this? Your bonfires and illuminations are dimmed with blood and with tears, and battle is in itself a
great evil, and a subject of general grief and lamentation. The victors are only the least unfortunate, and
suffering and death have, in general, brought us no nearer to tranquillity and happiness.' It may be well thus
to bring the value of a peace before the public mind. Let those who only know of war from history, reflect
how great must be the evils of a state the cessation of which gives such a feeling of relief.

Here is a curious passage about the society of Liverpool in 1813, and his love of his native country. We
must receive the statement respecting the Quakers with something more than doubt, at least as to the
extent to which it is true:—'I have been dining out every day for this last week with Unitarians, and Whigs,
and Americans, and brokers, and bankers, and small fanciers of pictures and paints, and the Quaker
aristocracy, and the fashionable vulgar, of the place. But I do not like Liverpool much better, and could not
live here with any comfort. Indeed, I believe I could not live anywhere out of Scotland. All my
recollections are Scottish, and consequently all my imaginations; and though I thank God that I have as few
fixed opinions as any man of my standing, yet all the elements out of which they are made have a certain
national cast also. In short, I will not live anywhere else if I can help it; nor die either; and all old Esky's[3]
eloquence would have been thrown away in an attempt to persuade me that banishment furth the
kingdom might be patiently endured. I take more to Roscoe, however: he is thoroughly good-hearted, and
has a sincere, though foolish concern for the country. I have also found out a Highland woman with much
of the mountain accent, and sometimes get a little girl to talk to. But with all these resources, and the aid of
the Botanical Garden, the time passes rather heavily; and I am in some danger of dying of ennui, with the
apparent symptoms of extreme vivacity. Did you ever hear that most of the Quakers die of stupidity—
actually and literally? I was assured of the fact the other day by a very intelligent physician, who practised
twenty years among them, and informs me that few of the richer sort live to be fifty, but die of a sort of
atrophy, their cold blood just stagnating by degrees among their flabby fat. They eat too much, he says;
take little exercise; and, above all, have no nervous excitement. The affection is known in this part of the
country by the name of the Quaker's disease, and more than one-half of them go out so. I think this
curious, though not worth coming to Liverpool to hear,...